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Summary

In recent years quantum theory has forced a sea change in Western natural philosophy, casting doubt on traditional physical explanations of the universe's genesis and structure.

Author Biography

Robert Lanza was taken under the wing of scientificgiants such as psychologist B.F. Skinner, immunologistJonas Salk, and heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard.His mentors described him as a “genius,” a “renegadethinker,” even likening him to Einstein himself.—US News & World Report cover story

Robert Lanza has been exploring the frontiers of science for morethan four decades, and is considered one of the leading scientists inthe world. He is currently Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced CellTechnology, and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University Schoolof Medicine. He has several hundred publications and inventions,and twenty scientific books, among them, Principles of Tissue Engineering,which is recognized as the definitive reference in the field.Others include One World: The Health & Survival of the Human Speciesin the 21st Century (with a foreword by President Jimmy Carter), andthe Handbook of Stem Cells and Essentials of Stem Cell Biology, whichare considered the definitive references in stem cell research.

Dr. Lanza received his BA and MD degrees from the Universityof Pennsylvania, where he was both a University Scholar and BenjaminFranklin Scholar. He was also a Fulbright Scholar, and was partof the team that cloned the world’s first human embryo, as well asthe first to clone an endangered species, to demonstrate that nucleartransfer could reverse the aging process, and to generate stem cellsusing a method that does not require the destruction of humanembryos. Dr. Lanza was awarded the 2005 Rave Award for Medicineby Wired magazine, and received the 2006 “All Star” Award for Biotechnologyby Mass High Tech.

Dr. Lanza and his research have been featured in almost everymedia outlet in the world, including all the major television networks,CNN, Time, Newsweek, People magazine, as well as the frontpages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LosAngeles Times, and USA Today, among others. Lanza has worked withsome of the greatest thinkers of our time, including Nobel LaureatesGerald Edelman and Rodney Porter. Lanza worked closely withB.F. Skinner at Harvard University. Lanza and Skinner (the “Fatherof Modern Behaviorism”) published a number of scientific paperstogether. He has also worked with Jonas Salk (discoverer of the poliovaccine) and heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard.

Bob Berman is the most widely read astronomer in the world. Authorof more than one thousand published articles, in publications suchas Discover and Astronomy magazine, where he is a monthly columnist,he is also astronomy editor of The Old Farmer’s Almanac and theauthor of four books. He is adjunct professor of astronomy at MarymountCollege, and writes and produces a weekly show on NortheastPublic Radio, aired during NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Table of Contents

Introduction

p. 1

Muddy Universe

p. 3

In the Beginning There Was ... What?

p. 11

The Sound of a Falling Tree

p. 19

Lights and Action!

p. 25

Where Is the Universe?

p. 33

Bubbles in Time

p. 41

When Tomorrow Comes Before Yesterday

p. 47

The Most Amazing Experiment

p. 61

Goldilocks's Universe

p. 83

No Time to Lose

p. 95

Space Out

p. 111

The Man Behind the Curtain

p. 129

Windmills of the Mind

p. 135

A Fall in Paradise

p. 143

Building Blocks of Creation

p. 147

What Is This Place?

p. 153

Sci-Fi Gets Real

p. 163

Mystery of Consciousness

p. 169

Death and Eternity

p. 185

Where Do We Go from Here?

p. 195

The Lorentz Transformation

p. 199

Einstein's Relativity and Biocentrism

p. 201

Index

p. 209

About the Authors

p. 213

Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Introduction

Our understanding of the universe as a whole has reached a deadend. The “meaning” of quantum physics has been debatedsince it was first discovered in the 1930s, but we are no closerto understanding it now than we were then. The “theory of everything”that was promised for decades to be just around the cornerhas been stuck for decades in the abstract mathematics of string theory,with its unproven and unprovable assertions.

But it’s worse than that. Until recently, we thought we knew whatthe universe was made of, but it now turns out that 96 percent of theuniverse is composed of dark matter and dark energy, and we havevirtually no idea what they are. We’ve accepted the Big Bang, despitethe increasingly greater need to jury-rig it to fit our observations (asin the 1979 acceptance of a period of exponential growth, known asinflation, for which the physics is basically unknown). It even turnsout that the Big Bang has no answer for one of the greatest mysteries inthe universe: why is the universe exquisitely fine-tuned to support life?Our understanding of the fundamentals of the universe is actuallyretreating before our eyes. The more data we gather, the morewe’ve had to juggle our theories or ignore findings that simply makeno sense.

This book proposes a new perspective: that our current theoriesof the physical world don’t work, and can never be made to work,until they account for life and consciousness. This book proposesthat, rather than a belated and minor outcome after billions of yearsof lifeless physical processes, life and consciousness are absolutelyfundamental to our understanding of the universe. We call this newperspective biocentrism.

In this view, life is not an accidental by-product of the laws ofphysics. Nor is the nature or history of the universe the dreary playof billiard balls that we’ve been taught since grade school.

Through the eyes of a biologist and an astronomer, we willunlock the cages in which Western science has unwittingly managedto confine itself. The twenty-first century is predicted to bethe century of biology, a shift from the previous century dominatedby physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turningthe universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science,not with imaginary strings that occupy equally imaginary unseendimensions, but with a much simpler idea that is rife with so manyshocking new perspectives that we are unlikely ever to see realitythe same way again.

Biocentrism may seem like a radical departure from our currentunderstanding, and it is, but the hints have appeared all around usfor decades. Some of the conclusions of biocentrism may resonatewith aspects of Eastern religions or certain New Age philosophies.This is intriguing, but rest assured there is nothing New Age aboutthis book. The conclusions of biocentrism are based on mainstreamscience, and it is a logical extension of the work of some of our greatestscientific minds.

Biocentrism cements the groundwork for new lines of investigationin physics and cosmology. This book will lay out the principlesof biocentrism, all of which are built on established science, and allof which demand a rethinking of our current theories of the physicaluniverse.